Four (4) centuries of Islamic tyranny in Bosnia

If any single factor made the Balkans what they were in history -- and what they still are today -- it was the ordeal of the Turk... For the 18th and 19th Centuries, the image of Turkey was that of a rotting empire, of a corrupt, incompetent and sadistic national elite preying on the subject Balkan peoples - of a cynical government whose very method of rule was atrocity.

[T]hey forbade the building of all but the meanest churches, and likewise outlawed the ringing of church bells.

What was damaging to the Balkan peoples was [that]... they had been stripped of pride and freedom. As Christians, they were now despised...

[T]he Turkish over-lordship created a Balkan mosaic of legal, social and economic relations... What was uniform to all [subdued Christians] was the experience of alien over-lordship and the legacy of violence as the cohesion and power of the Empire declined. When the Empire passed its apex of power in the 17th and 18th Centuries, the conditions of the subject peoples took a catastrophic turn for the worse... It was in these... years that the proverb came into vogue: "Where the Turk trod, no grass grows." Within the Empire, the 17th and 18th Century military officials, the beys and dahis, savagely oppressed the people; they were scarcely to be distinguished from the robber bands...

On the frontiers, [which is where Bosnia was] war -- and with it the parallel evils of yearly murder, rape and arson -- became as regular as the cycle of season.

The above quote is from: "Origin of the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society" Bat Ye'Or, Chicago, August 31, 1995

In the Serbian regions, the most fanatical opponents of Christian emancipation were the Muslims Bosniacs...

A systematic enquiry into the condition of the Christians was conducted by British consuls in the Ottoman Empire in the 1860s. Britain was then Turkey's strongest ally. It was in its own interest to see that the oppression of the Christians would be eliminated in order to prevent any Russian or Austrian interference. Consul James Zohrab sent from Bosna-Serai (Sarajevo) a lengthy report, dated July 22, 1860, to his ambassador in Constantinople, Sir Henry Bulwer, in which he analyzed the administration of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He stated that from 1463 to 1850 the Bosniac Muslims enjoyed all the privileges of feudalism. During a period of nearly 400 years Christians were subjected to much oppression and cruelty. For them no other law but the caprice of their masters existed... Under false accusations imprisonments are of daily occurrence. A Christian has but a small chance of exculpating himself when his opponent is a Muslim."

The above quote is from: "The Serbian People" by P. Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich & Eleanor Calhoun New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910, The excerpt is from Chapter VII: "The Serbians under Turkish rule from about 1470 to about 1800"

In the year 1413 the southern Serbian provinces were unable longer to hold out against the Turks. Serbia in 1459, Bosnia in 1463, and Herzegovina in 1481 were all finally conquered and became Turkish provinces.

The basis of Ottoman power was the sword and the Ottoman State was and is an organised theocracy.

The Mohammedan religion is not a religion in the Christian sense of involving principally the problems of morality, spiritual growth, and immortality. Mohammedanism is a state of society founded on a collection of laws and legal principles dealing with and ruling every event of individual and public life. The vast community of believers in various countries of the world basing the entire political, social, and religious fabric on that collection of laws, and the mystical, ethical, and philosophical tenets given by Mahomet in the Koran, afterward developed by the masters of the "Four Schools" of Mohammedan teaching, forms "Islam."

For that reason where Islam is master no other civil status is recognised except in tolerance and in subordination to Islam. There can be no assimilation with people of other creeds or civilisation. The perception of that fact was vividly set forth in the arguments of that Sultan, in the seventeenth century, who urged that as Moslem victor and Christian vanquished could never make one people, Ottoman domination could become secure only by the universal slaughter of all Christians in conquered territories. Up to our own time that conclusion has haunted Stamboul [Istanbul] like an evil dream.

The conquered Christian populations were disarmed and dispossessed of all property, and were soon pressed into a condition of serfdom under Turkish masters. They were called "giours" and in the mass the "rayah," "the herd." Whoever renounced his faith and became a Mohammedan was thereby instantly naturalised into Islam, receiving the status and all the life-chances of a born Osmanili [Turk]. That was the sole means in his power of escaping from the subjected masses or of opening a door of opportunity.

The Serbians in general refused to accept that door of escape from durancevile, and remained true to their Christian and national faith, even though the long night of practical extinction, hoping for a dawn though long deferred.

Many of the Serbian nobles and numbers of the common people fled to Serb lands under Venice or those under Hungary [i.e. to Krajina]. Certain ones among the nobles and others became Moslems, thereby preserving their lands and castles, and authority was given to them under the Turks as Pashas, Beys, Agas, and Spahis. They became ranged, in the eyes of the general populations, on the side of the conquerors, and were looked upon by the people as Turks.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the inhabitants had not only been subject to Turkish attack, but had been obliged as well to stand, ever beating back Hungarian invasions, the greater part of the nobles, mostly Bogomils, went over in body to Mohammedanism.

Large numbers of Serbs, loyal to their faith and home traditions, escaped to the mountain fastnesses from which they were able to harass the Turks of the plains and so maintain a relative independence.

The Serbians of the Rayah lived under great oppression and humiliation, their only means of protection being through the Serbian Patriarch so long as one existed.

In case of acts of injustice or violence suffered at the hands of individual Turks, there was no possible redress. The Christians were forbidden the use of horses or camels, only mules and asses being allowed them. They were forbidden to ride even a mule or an ass in the presence of a Turk. It was not permitted that their houses should have a better appearance than Turkish houses. For their faith they had much to suffer. The clergy, few in number, were kept in miserable conditions, and churches which had been destroyed were not allowed to be rebuilt, the building of new churches being strictly forbidden. The sound of church bells was forbidden as was also the reading aloud of the Holy Scriptures or the pronunciation of the name of Jesus Christ.

It was not lawful to make the sign of the cross, to show a cross, or to eat pork in sight of a Turk.

The Rayah were not allowed openly to bury their dead; Christian burials tookplace at night or in secret; mourning for the dead was strictly prohibited either by costume or by symbol or in any other way.

Church services were often held in some secluded spot in forest or glen, sometimes under a chosen tree marked with a cross; or ordinary houses were built as if for a family, with a central hearth, and sometimes with surrounding storehouse and stable to avoid suspicion, and were consecrated and used secretly as churches. Such houses still exist in Macedonia.

From: "The Balkans," page 44, Time-Life World Library by Edmund Stillman and the Editors of LIFE, Time Inc., New York, 1967

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